


He Won't Tell You He Loves You

by barricadebabes



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-15
Updated: 2013-06-15
Packaged: 2017-12-15 00:43:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 638
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/843327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/barricadebabes/pseuds/barricadebabes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A Feuilly/Azelma one-shot. Just because.</p>
            </blockquote>





	He Won't Tell You He Loves You

He erases pencil markings and crumples up paper almost as frantically as he writes, creating worlds and then destroying them like the way you used to kick sandcastles after constructing them as a child. But then he’s never been quite open about his stories, never wanting to tell where he’s come from and where he’s going. (Although you suspect that’s because he doesn’t really know either). But you don’t ask and he doesn’t say anything because that’s the way things are between the two of you.

Sometimes you try and catch a glimpse of what he’s writing and he’ll slide the notebook to you because he has no need to keep secrets from you. Not when you’ve memorized the way his fingers will twitch when he’s feeling annoyed and you know what jokes he will laugh at like you know the exact moment when the drum solo in your favorite song will happen but it still thrills you all the same. You know him as well as any person can and he doesn’t say it, but he likes that someone has learned him like he’s a language or 9th grade Algebra.

You open it slowly, hesitantly pressing your fingertips against the cover of the notebook that he’s never seen without. You are holding his hands through a degree of separation because that’s the best you’ll get from him so you smile at him as thanks for a chance to see what it is he is working on.

The writing is messy and chaotic but the words aren’t. His story is one of peace that he’s probably never actually known and loneliness that she knows for a fact that he has. He writes about a boy who catches moths and sets them free like he did with the woman he loved, knowing their freedom is worth more than his happiness. He writes about a shadow of a girl, who resembles death as she watches a pair of lovers embrace from the shadows. He writes about fallen heroes and the stillness after a battle.

And most of all, he writes about a girl with hair the color of autumn leaves and hands that heal and eyes that only know sadness. He writes about the fears that the girl carries with her like chains around her neck, slowly choking her because she doesn’t realize she’s always been stronger than them. And her name may be different but you know that she is you just like you know that even though the word _love_ is not once spelled out in his notebook it is written on every page. You don’t mention it.

 You want to ask him if he’s ever written about the nights you’ve spent underneath him, sweating and panting and grinning. You want to ask if he’s written about the way he kisses your left knee before eating you out or the way sometimes will beg you to kiss him when he has his hands all over and in you or that the last time he grabbed fistfuls of your hair when he sank into you and bit your shoulder when he came. You want to ask him if he knows the reason you turned up the radio was because you didn’t want to hear the sound of his pulse slowing down to match yours as he fell asleep with his arms around your waist.

But you don’t ask him and he doesn’t say anything because that’s the way things are between the two of you.

He takes the notebook back and keeps on writing and erasing. He writes you and you watch him and you’re a pair strangers that know each other better than anyone else. Not that either of you will ever admit it aloud... that’s just not the way things are between the two of you.

**Author's Note:**

> “You’re in a car with a beautiful boy, and he won’t tell you that he loves you, but he loves you. And you feel like you’ve done something terrible, like robbed a liquor store, or swallowed pills, or shoveled yourself a grave in the dirt, and you’re tired. You’re in a car with a beautiful boy, and you’re trying not to tell him that you love him, and you’re trying to choke down the feeling, and you’re trembling, but he reaches over and he touches you, like a prayer for which no words exist, and you feel your heart taking root in your body, like you’ve discovered something you didn’t even have a name for." -Richard Siken


End file.
